1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device in which a circuit including a thin film transistor (hereinbelow, abbreviated to xe2x80x9cTFTxe2x80x9d) is formed on a substrate having an electrically insulating surface, and a method of fabricating the semiconductor device. By way of example, it relates to the constructions of an electrooptic device which is typified by a liquid crystal display device, and an electronic equipment in which the electrooptic device is installed. Incidentally, here in this specification, the expression semiconductor device is intended to signify general devices which function by utilizing semiconductor properties, and it shall cover within its category such electrooptic device and the electronic equipment as exemplified above.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have been positively fostered the developments of techniques for fabricating an active matrix type liquid crystal display device by providing TFTs on a glass substrate or a quartz substrate. Among the TFTs, a TFT whose active layer is a semiconductor film having a crystalline structure (hereinbelow, termed crystalline TFT) attains a high mobility. It is therefore said that the crystalline TFTs can integrate functional circuits on an identical substrate, thereby to realize image display of high definition.
Here in this specification, the semiconductor film having a crystalline structure shall cover a single-crystal semiconductor, a polycrystalline semiconductor and a microcrystalline semiconductor. Further, it shall cover semiconductors disclosed in the official gazette of a Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 7-130652 (1995) which corresponds to a U.S. Pat. No. 5,642,826, a Laid-open No. 8-78329 (1996), a Laid-open No. 10-135468 (1998) which corresponds to a U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/951,193, a Laid-open No. 10-135469 (1998) which corresponds to a Ser. No. 08/951,819, or a Laid-open No. 10-247735 (1998) which corresponds to a Ser. No. 09/034,041.
In order to construct the active matrix type liquid crystal display device, the n-channel TFTs (hereinbelow, termed pixel TFTs ) of a pixel matrix circuit are necessary in as large a number as 1,000,000 through 2,000,000. Further, when the TFTs of functional circuits provided around the pixel matrix circuit are added, a still larger number of crystalline TFTs are necessary. Specifications required of the liquid crystal display device are severe. For the purpose of stably presenting image display, eventually, it is the primary requisite to ensure the reliability of each individual crystalline TFT.
The characteristics of a field effect transistor such as the TFT can be considered as being divided into a linear region where a drain current and a drain voltage increase in proportion, a saturation region where the drain current becomes saturated even when the drain voltage is increased, and a cutoff region where ideally no current flows even when the drain voltage is applied. In this specification, the linear region and the saturation region shall be called an ON region of the TFT, and the cutoff region an OFF region. Besides, for the sake of convenience, the drain current in the ON region shall be called an ON current , and a current in the OFF region an OFF current.
Concerning the pixel TFT, a gate voltage having an amplitude of about 15 to 20 V is applied as a drive condition. Accordingly, the pixel TFT needs to satisfy the characteristics of both the ON region and the OFF region. On the other hand, each peripheral circuit for driving the pixel matrix circuit is constructed on the basis of a CMOS circuit, in which importance is chiefly attached to the characteristics of the ON region.
In this regard, it is said that the crystalline TFT is still inferior in point of reliability to a MOS transistor (a transistor fabricated on a single-crystal semiconductor substrate) which is used for an LSI, etc. By way of example, when the crystalline TFT is continuously driven, such deteriorating phenomena as lowering in the field effect mobility, decrease in the ON current and increase in the OFF current are sometimes observed. A cause for the deteriorating phenomena is the injection of hot carriers, that is, the hot carriers created by a high electric field near the drain of the TFT incur the deteriorating phenomena.
In the technical field of the LSIs, an LDD (Lightly Doped Drain) structure has been known as an expedient for decreasing the OFF current of the MOS transistor and for mitigating a high electric field near the drain of the MOS transistor. The structure is such that impurity regions of low concentration are provided outside a channel forming region. The low-concentration impurity regions are called LDD regions.
Even in the crystalline TFT, the formation of an LDD structure has, of course, been known. The official gazette of Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 7-202210 (1995), for example, discloses a technique wherein a gate electrode is formed into a structure of two layers which have widths different from each other, and concretely, in which the upper layer is narrower than the lower layer, and ions are subsequently implanted using the gate electrode as a mask, whereby LDD regions are formed by one time of ion implantation by utilizing the different penetration depths of the ions based on the fact that the thickness of the gate electrode is not uniform. Herein, the gate electrode overlaps the LDD regions directly.
Such a structure has been known as a GOLD (Gate-drain Overlapped LDD) structure, a LATID (Large-tilt-angle implanted drain) structure, or an ITLDD (Inverse T LDD) structure. It can mitigate the high electric field near the drain, thereby to prevent the phenomenon of the hot carrier injection and to enhance the reliability. In, for example, Mutsuko Hatano, Hajime Akimoto and Takeshi Sakai: IEDM97 TECHNICAL DIGEST, pp. 523-526, 1997, a TFT which has a GOLD structure based on side walls formed of silicon has been verified to attain a reliability which is far superior to those of TFTs of other structures.
However, the structure laid open in the above paper has the problem that the OFF current of the TFT increases more than with the conventional LDD structure, and it necessitates a measure for eliminating the problem. Especially in the pixel TFT constituting the pixel matrix circuit, the increase of the OFF current results in augmenting power dissipation or/and causing abnormality to appear in the image display. Therefore, the GOLD structure cannot be applied to the crystalline TFT as it is.
The present invention consists in techniques for solving the problems as stated above, and has for its object to incarnate a crystalline TFT which achieves a reliability equivalent or superior to that of a MOS transistor and which also attains good characteristics in both the ON region and the OFF region thereof.
Another object of the present invention is to incarnate a semiconductor device of high reliability which includes a semiconductor circuit formed of such crystalline TFTs.
FIGS. 18(A-1) and 18(B-1) through FIGS. 18(A-4) and 18(B-4) schematically illustrate the structures of TFTs and Vg-Id (gate voltage-drain current) characteristics attained with the structures, on the basis of knowledge hitherto obtained. FIG. 18(A-1) is a schematic sectional view showing the simplest structure of the TFT in which a semiconductor layer below a gate electrode consists of a channel forming region, a source region and a drain region (n+ regions). FIG. 18(B-1) is a graph showing the Vg-Id characteristics in which a +Vg side is the ON region of the TFT, while a xe2x88x92Vg side is the OFF region thereof. Herein, a solid line indicates initial characteristics, and a broken line indicates characteristics deteriorated by the phenomenon of hot carrier injection. With the structure, both the ON current and OFF current of the TFT are high, and the deteriorations are of large magnitudes. Therefore, the TFT left intact cannot be used for, for example, the pixel TFT of a pixel matrix circuit.
FIG. 18(A-2) is a schematic sectional view showing the LDD structure of the TFT in which low-concentration impurity regions (nxe2x88x92 region) serving as LDD regions are added to the structure depicted in FIG. 18(A-1), and in which the LDD regions and a gate electrode do not overlap each other. FIG. 18(B-2) is a graph showing the Vg-Id characteristics of the TFT. With the structure, the deterioration in the OFF current of the TFT can be suppressed to some extent, but the deterioration in the ON current of the TFT cannot be prevented. Besides, FIG. 18(A-3) is a schematic sectional view showing the structure (called the GOLD structure) of the TFT in which entire LDD regions and a gate electrode overlap each other. FIG. 18(B-3) is a graph of the Vg-Id characteristics corresponding to FIG. 18(A-3). The structure can suppress the deteriorations to the extent of posing no problem, but it increases the OFF current of the TFT on the xe2x88x92Vg side more than the structure depicted in FIG. 18(A-2).
Accordingly, any of the structures shown in FIGS. 18(A-1), 18(A-2) and 18(A-3) cannot satisfy those characteristics of the ON region and the OFF region which are necessary for the pixel matrix circuit, simultaneously with the reliability of the TFT. In contrast to the above structures, a structure shown in FIG. 18(A-4) is such that each of LDD regions which a gate electrode overlaps consists of a part which lies under the gate electrode, and a part which does not lie under the gate electrode. With the structure, it is possible as seen from FIG. 18(B-4) to satisfactorily suppress the deterioration in the ON current of the TFT and to decrease the OFF current thereof.
The structure shown in FIG. 18(A-4) has been derived from the following consideration: With the structure as shown in FIG. 18(A-3), when a negative voltage is applied to the gate electrode of the n-channel TFT, that is, when the TFT is operated in the OFF region, holes are induced at the interfaces between the LDD regions, which the gate electrode overlaps, and a gate insulating film, with increase in the negative voltage, and a current path based on the minority carriers as joins the drain region, LDD regions and channel region of the TFT is formed. On this occasion, if the drain region is under the application of a positive voltage, the holes will flow to the side of the source region of the TFT. This will be a cause for the increase of the OFF current.
It can be considered that LDD regions in which the minority carriers are not accumulated in spite of the application of the gate voltage may be provided in order to cut off the above current path midway. The present invention pertains to a TFT having such a structure, and a circuit employing the TFTs.
Accordingly, in one aspect of performance of the present invention, a semiconductor device wherein a TFT is formed on a substrate, the TFT having a semiconductor layer, a gate insulating film formed on the semiconductor layer, and a gate electrode formed on the gate insulating film; is characterized in that said gate electrode includes a first layer which is formed in contact with said gate insulating film, a second layer which is formed on and inside said first layer, and a third layer which is formed in contact with said first layer and said second layer; that said semiconductor layer includes a channel forming region, a first impurity region of one conductivity type, and a second impurity region of said one conductivity type which is formed between said channel forming region and said first impurity region; and that a part of said second impurity region of said one conductivity type lies under said first layer of said gate electrode.
In another aspect of performance of the present invention, a method of fabricating a semiconductor device is characterized by comprising the first step of forming a semiconductor layer on a substrate which has an insulating surface; the second step of forming a gate insulating film in contact with said semiconductor layer; the third step of successively forming a conductive layer (A) and a conductive layer (B) on said gate insulating film; the fourth step of etching said conductive layer (B) into a predetermined pattern, thereby to form a second layer of a gate electrode; the fifth step of doping a selected region of said semiconductor layer with an impurity element of one conductivity type; the sixth step of forming a conductive layer (C) in contact with said conductive layer (A) and said second layer of said gate electrode; the seventh step of etching said conductive layer (C) and said conductive layer (A) into predetermined patterns, thereby to form a third layer of said gate electrode and a first layer thereof; and the eighth step of doping a selected region of said semiconductor layer with an impurity element of said one conductivity type.
In still another aspect of performance of the present invention, a method of fabricating a semiconductor device is characterized by comprising the first step of forming a semiconductor layer on a substrate which has an insulating surface; the second step of forming a gate insulating film in contact with said semiconductor layer; the third step of successively forming a conductive layer (A) and a conductive layer (B) on said gate insulating film; the fourth step of etching said conductive layer (B) into a predetermined pattern, thereby to form a second layer of a gate electrode; the fifth step of doping a selected region of said semiconductor layer with an impurity element of one conductivity type; the sixth step of forming a conductive layer (C) in contact with said conductive layer (A) and said second layer of said gate electrode; the seventh step of etching said conductive layer (C) and said conductive layer (A) into predetermined patterns, thereby to form a third layer of said gate electrode and a first layer thereof; the eighth step of doping a selected region of said semiconductor layer with an impurity element of said one conductivity type; and the ninth step of removing parts of said first layer of said gate electrode and said third layer thereof.
In yet another aspect of performance of the present invention, a method of fabricating a semiconductor device is characterized by comprising the first step of forming a first semiconductor layer and a second semiconductor layer on a substrate which has an insulating surface; the second step of forming a gate insulating film on said first semiconductor layer and said second semiconductor layer; the third step of successively forming a conductive layer (A) and a conductive layer (B) on said gate insulating film; the fourth step of etching said conductive layer (B) into a predetermined pattern, thereby to form a second layer of a gate electrode; the fifth step of doping a selected region of said first semiconductor layer with an impurity element of one conductivity type; the sixth step of forming a conductive layer (C) in contact with said conductive layer (A) and said second layer of said gate electrode; the seventh step of etching said conductive layer (C) and said conductive layer (A) into predetermined patterns, thereby to form a third layer of said gate electrode and a first layer thereof; the eighth step of doping selected regions of said first semiconductor layer and said second semiconductor layer with an impurity element of said one conductivity type; and the ninth step of doping a selected region of said second semiconductor layer with an impurity of a conductivity type opposite to said one conductivity type.
Such a TFT is well suited for application to the n-channel TFT of a CMOS circuit or the pixel TFT of a pixel matrix circuit. In the structure of the TFT according to the present invention, said first impurity region formed in said semiconductor layer functions as a source region or a drain region, and said second impurity region functions as an LDD region. Accordingly, a concentration of an impurity element of said one conductivity type is lower in said second impurity region than in said first impurity region.
The semiconductor device according to the present invention can be so constructed that a retention capacitance is formed of an impurity region of said one conductivity type which is provided at one end of said semiconductor layer, said gate insulating film, and a wiring line which is constituted by said first layer of said gate electrode, said second layer thereof and said third layer thereof, and that said retention capacitance is connected to a source or a drain of said TFT.
Further, the semiconductor device according to the present invention is characterized in that said first layer of said gate electrode and said third layer thereof are formed containing at least one member selected from the group consisting of elements of silicon (Si), titanium (Ti), tantalum (Ta), tungsten (W) and molybdenum (Mo), and a compound which contains any of said elements as its component, and that said second layer of said gate electrode is formed containing at least one member selected from the group consisting of elements of aluminum (Al) and copper (Cu), and a compound which contains any of said elements as its principal component.